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I P P E K I n M : 



A SATIRE. 



IPPERIUP: 



A SATIRE. 



;/3./' 






Copyright, 
By J. P. Johnston, 






Ye laureled Bards ! whose proud poetic fame 
Forbids all mention of my humbler name • 
Champions of Freedom ! whose emblazoned shields 
Show triumphs wrought on Legendary fields ; 
Who Taunt the trophies of her prowess shown 
In other lands,— who lately in our own, 
When Slavery's voice proclaimed her daring creed, 
Launched forth her lightnings with unsparing speed 
Now, Thraldom threatens North and South alike. 
Ye sheathe her weapons, and refuse to strike ! 
Hence ! let my hand the stern defiance yield, 
Whose fiashing cohorts soon shall sweep the field. 



When Fraud usurps the functions of the State; 

When banished Power its grasp would recreate, 

By base perversion of the Public Will ; 

When Party Fee absorbs the Statesman's skill ; 

When high Tribunals thwart the Public Voice, 

And foist to place the creature of their choice; 

When Bayonets must keep the mob at bay. 

While leagued Corruption grasps the reins of sway. 

When Corporation, by the power of Law, 

Works out its will, then bids the hounds withdraw ; 

When Courts exist to shelter public vice. 

And prove the truth that Judges have their price ; 

When Legislation drives a Shylock trade. 

And " booms " the Bill for which the bribe is paid; 

When Money counts, and still each Faction-king 

Knows just how much it costs to buy the Ring ; 

When Politicians, watchful of the plan. 

Forestall the suffrage of each honest man ; 

When plugged Conventions, working for their pay. 

Like well trained "Nines," obey their Backer's sway ; 

When Party Leaders, schooled among " the boys," 

Know each one's worth, for poise or counterpoise ; 

When Party Tricksters, digitally nice, 

With dextrous skill can flip the "golden dice ; 

When Party Clansmen, with the slogan cry. 

Bulldoze and silence those they will not buy ; 

When the Machine, well oiled and smoothly run, 

Grinds out its choice and leaves the People none, — 

What then remains ? Let freeborn millions speak ! 

One Voice — the last ! ere Power your doom shall wreak. 



IMPERIUM: 

A SATIRE. 

Immortal Homer ! whose resounding name 
Forever feeds the trumpet tones of Fame ; 
Whose scroll of song and bright unfolding page 
Reveals new marvels to each wondering age, — 
Bids patient Science, in her native clime, 
Dig treasures hoarded from the dawn of time — 
Has taught our own, what else it ne'er had learned, 
The lesson long by skeptic blindness spurned : 
That page whose light shall flash the ages through, 
Whate'er it claim beside, must yet be true J 
Great sire of poets ! whose promiscuous race 
Thy gods themselves would hardly hope to trace, 
I, all unfitted for the master's role, 
Claim only this : The kindred of the soul. 
The soul of Truth, inspired at Nature's birth, 
Is still the same in every clime of earth. 
Was all unfolded in thy matchless verse ? 
Let classic souls its echoed strains rehearse ; 
Whilst I, unskilled in thy immortal tone, 
Find yet some mortal meaning in my own, 
To show the race of despots, fools and knaves, 
This fearless truth— All are not made for slaves. 

When late the chief of Trans-Atlantic song, \ 
Expelled by hatred and pursued by wrong, 



6 

Left the proud isle which saw his genius rise, 
To find a home 'neath more congenial skies, 
What hounds of malice hung upon his back, 
And mouthed their hate along the exile's track ! 
What slanderous serpents round his pathway clung. 
And hissed their venom o'er the heart they stung ! 
'Twas then, exalted by the world's disdain, 
His song flashed forth in Freedom's loftiest strain. 
Like that Apocalyptic angel, viewed 
By John, his voice, as robed with power he stood, 
With pillared feet upon the land and sea, 
Proclaimed the hour when nations must be free ! 
He gave the book, whose words of bitter-sweet 
The prostrate nations, groaning, soon shall eat ; 
Then gave to Greece, the land of Homer's fame, 
A poet's life, a hero's deathless name. 

Alas, that still the record must be shown, 

From strongest lights the deepest shadows thrown ; 

That fiery spirits, sent to teach mankind, 

In their own souls their recompense must find. 

Still must we gauge by long contested creeds 

The generous impulse wrought in fearless deeds ; 

He loved his fellows, yet he loved not those 

Who by their creed make all mankind their foes. 

Behold the mystery and its meaning scan ; 

The key is God's great compensative plan. 

All things that are in Nature's boundless range, 

Fulfill their course by compensative change. 

Flame feeds on fuel ; ice is coldly fixed ; 

In him the elements were fiercely mixed ; 

And from the conflict of his being came 

Vast cloudlike folds and thunders mixed with flame. 

He wroughf his message, and he went his way ; 

God grant him mercy on that fierier day ! 

He felt his need, and owned it at the last ; 

In prayer for this his outworn spirit passed ; 



By suffering marred, as all such natures are, 
And marred by sin, let not detraction mar ! 

Since then, what song is heard in Freedom's praise? 
What fearless page her glowing name displays ? 
A few faint echoes of each outworn chime, 
And tinkling phrase, grown thin by constant rhyme, 
Are all ; the rest perverted to the wage, 
And riffraff nonsense of Sensation's page. 
His verse still forms on fair Columbia's brow 
Her choicest wreath — a debt repaid — and how ? 
Repaid by her — unnamed, yet known too well — 
That vile procuress to the joys of hell ! 
When to the winds her vampire tale was cast, 
Whose curse, full-fledged — come home to roost at last- 
Makes Plymouth Preacher all that's vilely base, 
A synonym for foulness and disgrace. 
Why speak of this ? To mark with trenchant skill, 
That " coward of uncommon baseness," still • 
(Forgive me, Tilton, if I quote from thee ; 
Thy cause requires no thankless aid from me, 
Patience ! and prove, what time must render plain, 
Truth tries strong spirits in the fire of pain, ) 
Untaught his sacred calling to exempt 
From public scorn, yet bids for fresh contempt, 
And mouths, to feed the fashion of the hour, 
His priestly sanction of unhallowed power. 

Columbia ! Name whose spell of sacred worth 
Hath been and is the crowning meed of earth ; 
The home of Freedom and the shrine of Truth ; 
That bright ideal, which in thoughtful youth, 
I strove to echo with faint tones of song. 
Till in the tumult of the jostling throng " 
My voice was lost ; yet still I hoped some bard. 
With touch of power, would wake thy lyric cord, 



8 

And breathe that flame which kindled in one breast, 
In waves of song would flash through all the rest. 
Still sleeps that spirit ? Shall heroic shades 
Chant godlike dirges in thy sounding glades, 
And none interpret so that all may hear? 
Shall soulless Fraud usurp this chosen sphere. 
For ages kept, till tyrant power outgrown, 
Should leave mankind a realm without a throne ? 
Still sleeps that spirit ? Shall the hosts of Wrong 
Unchallenged wreak the mandates of the Strong ? 
Is there no voice? Shall dark Corruption snare 
With webs of Law the slumbering Samson's hair, 
And none be found to rouse him from his sleep ? 
Shall ruling Faction still resolve to keep 
]>y force or fraud the transient lease of power, 
Nor deign to think of Retribution's hour? 

Is there no champion of the Sons of Song 
To rise in anger and rebuke the wrong? 
No Minstrel-prince that demon power to thrall 
Which rules the madness of this frenzied Saul ? 
Shall rampant Power, with lust of gore imbued, 
Revive the memory of each outworn feud. 
Stride, giant-like, o'er fields of patriot dead, 
And shake the land beneath its conquering tread ? 
While serried squadrons harness for the fray 
Their victor champion, boastful of the day, 
Let me, like David, then the task assume ! 
\ My sling may wreak this huge Goliath's doom ; 
Though all unarmored I have sought the field, 
No polished weapon in my hand I wield ; 
Unknown, and single from the cowering throng. 
Who bear unchecked the insults of the strong, 
Let my unpracticed hand and arm of youth 
Smite giant. Falsehood with the stone of Truth. 



9 

Unsceptered realm ! where, built with boundless care, 
God's hand hath reared a world's great House of Prayer 
Whose broad foundations, based in ocean's roar, 
And rock-paved porches, sweep from shore to shore ; 
"Whose cloud capped walls and mountain pillars rise. 
O'er roofed with splendor of the sapphire skies ; 
Whose altar shrines are Hashed with crystal spars. 
Crimson and gold, and gems of clustering stars ; 
World of the West ! whose wide expanded gates 
Unclose a clime where boundless blessing waits ; 
On whose broad bosom and maternal breast 
The gathered nations find a welcome rest ; 
Not one, but many — many linked in one ; 
Fair Freedom's stars encircling Freedom's sun ; 
A peaceful brotherhood of sovereign States ; 
'Tis thus that God his shining worlds creates ; 
'Tis thus her stars on Freedom's banner glow ; 
What fitter emblem could Columbia show ? 

In this broad land, where, from his mountain height, 
The eagle soars in heaven's unclouded light, 
Where, since that beam first on his vision shone, 
Far as his glance can pierce it sees no throne, — 
What sudden tumult shakes the startled air. 
With roll of drum and pealing trumpets blare? 
Through yonder plumes and ranks of glittering spears, 
What monarch form in royal pomp appears ? 
What laureled lustre from his brow is shed. 
Who thus presumes a Conqueror's path to tread? 
Come, Truth ! and with what slender skill we can. 
Rehearse the progress of the Coming Man. 

Swept on the surge of fierce fraternal strife, 
Which late engulfed a struggling people's life. 
Unmindful of the mangled wrecks around, 
So that for him the grist, success, was ground, — 



10 

Upborne by fortune to promotion's sphere, 

Victor, then ruler, now behold him here. 

Men mutely gaze and marvel at the sight, 

Or ask. How gained he such a lofty height ? 

Without one trait which nobler natures share, 

How comes he throned in sullen grandeur there ? 

Such do not read the page of power aright ; 

'Tis not a meed of worth, 'tis one of might. 

There is a force chief factor of success. 

Great souls may lack and meaner ones possess ; 

A gift supreme in fickle Fortune's dower ; 

The gitt to wait the all-potential hour ; 

Then, when the tide sweeps on with sounding sway, 

Launch forth the bark that bears the prize away ! 

Through densest barriers Nature's hand can weave, 

Repeated strokes at length a path will cleave ; 

When all is wrought that art and strength can do, 

What sovereign fool may not ride safely through ? 

There comes a moment when the battered wall, 

O'erborne, beneath a final touch will fall ; 

When years of war exhaust a people's power, 

The pimp of Fortune claims the victor's dower. 

When fierier souls, too zealous in the strife, 

Had sunk in death, or bore a mangled life ; 

When worthier chiefs, by factious power undone, 

Had from the arena vanished one by one. 

When sated War, too hugely glut with death, 

Held for an hour its fiercely panting breath ; 

When face to face the shattered armies lay, 

Close drawn at last, the weaker foe at bay, — 

Then was his hour ! " The Bulldog ! " was the cry ; 

He came, and sa w — then fell his cold reply : 

"I must have men ! " Remember, righteous Heaven, 

The generous crime — the men were freely given. 

For what?. To bridge that long be- vaunted ditch, 

The last ! to him a trifling matter which, — 



11 

Whose fruitful soil, well cultured to its bloom, 
Hatli grown this harvest of a hero's boom. 

Could that unlombed and flesliless host arise, 

What awful menace in their ghostly eyes 

Would greet this semblance of a tyrant's feast, 

To know they bled for such a soulless beast ; 

And wake the dread of what till now has slept, 

Dark retribution for their woes unwept. 

How could they think the cause for which they died 

Would make this mimic of despotic pride, 

Raised by success to such imperial height. 

Their country's mockery and her freedom's blight ? 

Would they not wreathe, with stern disdainful glance. 

The chieftain's car, or weaved in mystic dance. 

Chant by his side, with cold and shuddering hiss, 

In spectral tones such mocking strain as this ? 

Lo, the Hero of Hate on his conquering car ! 

Dark monarch of slaughter, fierce Moloch of war ; 

Stolid, insatiable, tyrannous, grim. 

Let the curse of our scorn be his welcoming hymn. 
We are covered from grief, we are shadowed from power. 
And we shadow the chief in his conquering hour. 

When the whirlwind of war was a tempest of hell, 
There were few that escaped, there were many who fell ; 
How we pitied that few, how we pity them yet, 
For the seal of his power on the living is set. 

We are covered from grief, we are shadowed from power. 
And we mock at the chief in his conquering hour. 

In our Bivouac Doom, in our Field of the Dead, 
We are foemen no longer — our passion is sped ; 
We have mingled as brothers, who challenged as foes, 
And the clasp of our kindred no feud can unclose. 
We are covered from grief, we are shadowed from power. 
And we scoff at the chief in his triumphing hour. 



12 

He had left us in peace, and our slumbers were light, 
For his country was freed from his tyrannous blight ; 
He returns with his thunders our bosoms to rack, 
And we summon our squadrons to shadow his track. 
We are covered from grief, we are shadowed from power, 
And we shadow the chief in his triumphing hour. 

We shadow the blaze of his conquering car, 

Fierce, Moloch of slaughter, dark monarch of war ; 

Gloomy, remorseless, inscrutable, grim, 

Let it never be said that we battled for him. 

We are covered from grief, we are shadowed from power, 
Let his triumph be brief — it will pass with the hour ! 

Enough of this I- too ghastly is the theme, 
Even though we know 'tis but a spectral dream ; 
Those patriot souls— I name not some, but all, 
Whose lives were given at their country's call. 
Sleep in the shadow of a stronger Power, 
To hail with joy a more triumphal .hour. 
Not ours to recognize the mingled plan ; 
Wait, and in love the perfect purpose scan ; 
The love which mourns such darkly wasted life, 
Shall heal the wounds of fierce fraternal strife. 

Here stay awhile — the monarch form demands 
A finished portrait from our faithful hands. 
Hands, not unskilled in hues of living light 
To clothe each image shadowed to the sight ; 
Or, lit by beams of truth's celestial vsij, 
To wreathe the page illumined by nature's sway, 
From fraud and falsehood sternly held aloof. 
Find here the task that puts their powers to proof ; 
Receive it, then, with truthful semblance rife, 
Though rudely drawn, the traits are all from life. 



13 

Inert, impassive as the stony Sphinx, 
Whose constant scowl declares that still he thinks, 
Nor thinks in vain, as each close-ordered phrase, 
Curt, keen, incisive, from his lips betrays ; 
Sordid alike in glory as in shame, 
And all unconscious of the patriot's flame. 
Who never spoke nor penned a generous thought 
Of fealty to the cause for which he wrought ; 
Of soul unfeeling as in guise austere. 
Unmoved by ardor and unswayed by fear ; 
Whom fate accords, what seems his fitting due 
A boundless lordship o'er a servile crew, — 
What potent fiend inspires that daring dream, 
The despot wish o'er all to reign supreme? 
Ambition, meaner vice of gifted minds, 
In that cold guise a fit exemplar finds, 
A brain well skilled in all her subtle arts, 
The craft, without the worth of nobler parts. 

Behold him seated in the People's Chair ! 

We sure shall find some gleams of lustre there ; 

Exalted by a grateful country's voice, 

He needs must seek to justify the choice ; 

The man at least, is human ; let him find 

Fit instruments to aid his fettered mind, 

Whose fixed integrity shall wisely share 

The gift of power intrusted to his care. 

Still rules undimmed that same malignant star ! 

In peace as doltish as unmoved in war ; 

The same dark egotist, who fathoms still 

No higher thought than his unquestioned will. 

Dare you presume his lightest wish to athwart ? 

Expect his hatred's unremorseful art. 

Slow, secret, sure, it finds the fitting hour. 

And manhood quails beneath its withering power! 



14 

"Would you escape his uurelenting wrath? 

Crouch, fawning, hound-like in the master's path. 

With power to make himself revered of all, 

His chiefest joy his former comrade's fall. 

With means each selfish mandate to fulfill, 

And shall this tyrant want the power to kill ? 

Oo ! read his fate, that high heroic soul, 

Who fell beneath the despot's dark control ; 

Who,, foremost still bright Honor's wreath to claim, 

Shone meteor-like amid the battle flame ; 

Whose martial form, beneath the warcloud dun, 

Led many a gallant charge, and lost not one ; 

Whose battle trophies would outnumber far 

The hero's throned on yon triumphal car ; 

Whose dauntless arm, and soul devoid of fear, 

Did much to lift him to that lofty sphere ; 

Who dared, unswayed by sycophantic awe, 

Obey the mandate of his country's law, 

And spoke what proved— expunge it thou who wilt ! 

The chief's connivance with his hireling's guilt ! 

Disgraced, dishonored in his country's ranks, 

Read here the hero's and the patriot's thanks ! 

See then that soldier, burning with the stain. 

Seek desperate death upon the battle plain ; 

Fall, girt with waves of circling savage strife — 

A fitting finale for his fearless life. 

Long shall thy deeds thy country's memory share, 
O dauntless chieftain of the shining hair ! 
Long, high enshrined upon her scroll of fame, 
Resplendent shine the gallant Custer's name ! 
While Ms who wrought thy sad yet glorious fate. 
Thy country's heart shall darkly execrate. 

Let none, attribute to my truthful page 
Vindictive malice or detractive rage. 



15 

No claim liave I to sanction or achieve, 
No failing cause to succor or retrieve. 
Reluctant Truth would fain the theme forego, 
But Justice bids the shameful history show. 
See ! rampant Fraud's intrepid Matador 
Transfixed by Power and weltering in his gore ! 
Fearless I flaunt the crimson tale abroad, 
And flout the foe his servile pimps applaud. 
Under a cloud ! his enemies proclaim ; 
The only cloud that covers Custer's name, 
Is that which generous souls must always bear, 
By duty called a despot's wrath to dare. 
Not all the might of Mississippi's wave, 
Though steeped for ages in its liquid grave, 
Could from his carcase wash the damning shame, 
While language lives the record to proclaim ! 

What ! this a Caesar? No ! the Roman's soul 
Could never feel revenge's dark control ; 
And even when treason dared his life to spill, 
Great Caesar's spirit loved his Brutus still. 
But this, who ne'er save serf or menial loved, 
A tyrant Brutus to his comrade proved. 

This a Napoleon ? No ! that soul of power, 
Which flamed so fiercely in its sovereign hour, 
Who crowned his legions with victorious spoil, 
Still shared alike their dangers and their toil ; 
Still spoke betimes the sympathetic word. 
Which like a trump their martial spirits stirred ; 
Yes! history tells, where frozen thousands slept 
On Russia's plains, the haughty soldier wept ; 
Gazed with remorse upon the corse-strewn track, 
Cried, " Give, O Storm ! my buried legions back ! " 
Well might he weep such wasted life to see ; 
But thou, what tear of pity flowed from thee. 
Above the fields where slaughtered thousands lie? 
No — " Give me men ! " was still thy soulless cry. 



16 

Yes ; probe, search, question tliat remorseless heart ; 

Explore his breast with psycologic art ; 

Rehearse his record since that fatal clay. 

He reeled to sight at Pittsburg Landing's fray ; 

Let Donaldson present its plea anew ; 

Let Vicksburg siege unfold its chart to view ; 

Let that dark Wilderness of ghastly death 

Exhale once more its pestilential breath ; 

Let Petersburg her massed and mangled dead 

In shattered heaps before the gaze outspread ; 

These were his countrymen, his kindred, all ; 

Name me the hour his sullen eye let fall 

For these, for all, the silent trickling tear 

Stern warriors shed even o'er a foeman's bier ; 

Name me the hour when from his lips there fell 

For one, for all, a whispered, sad farewell. 

Without a spark of that immortal ray 

Which fired the monarchs of a former day ; 

Which gave to Csesar, spite ambition's shame. 

The shining lustre of a deathless name ; 

Which made Napoleon, in his conquering pride. 

If such could be, a godlike homicide, 

And gave him, prisoned on his lonely isle, 

A soldier's meed, his country's love the while ; 

This soulless dolt, by fortune's aid alone. 

Has made a land the footstool of his throne, 

And bridged by countless slaughtered countrymen, 

A skull-paved causeway to his despot's den. 

Waste not your wrath upon the man alone ; 
Who does not see the power around the throne, 
Leagued, link by link, his central sway confest. 
Because, in truth, he represents them best ? 
The sordid champion of a base pretense, 
"By merit raised to that bad eminence." 



17 

Chief of that vile conspiracy whose shame 
Makes him the centre of its monstrous claim. 
If it be true, as these his menials prate, 
A sovereign hand should hold the rod of State, 
Else would the severed orbs disordered fly, 
And, comet-like, flame lawless through the sky^ 
Then find a man to rule us, but not this, — 
This beast from out the bottomless abyss 
Of factious fury and tyrannic hate, 
This dark embodiment of forceful fate ! 
Fit symbol of the Juggernaut of war. 
Enthroned by Faction on his conquering car, 
While serfs and menials own his silent nod — 
Immortal Hatred's mortal beast-like god ! 
Out on the sham ! let Freedom's voice declare 
Fit condemnation of its guilty glare. 
Out on the fraud ! let freemen's loud acclaim 
Speak swift reversal of its monstrous shame. 

What flaming planet ruled the fatal day 
When thou wert fashioned into soulless clay ? 
What deep malignance, passionless and cold. 
Could in thy form such sordid force enfold ? 
Saturn ? or Mars ? Not, surely. Mars ; for he. 
Fierce warrior-god, is still from baseness free ; 
Besides, he scorns each groveling satellite, 
And bids them keep well hidden from his sight. 
Saturn might well the fateful spell fulfill. 
Whose baleful presence works unmingled ill ; 
Saturn might well such evil potence fiing, 
Himself the centre of a monstrous Ring! 

Think not the artist fears his work to own,. 
Who trusts the canvas to its worth alone ; 
Your color blender does not scrawl below — 
This is a portrait — Mr. So-and-so 

■ 2 



18 

Unless his piede some graphic power displays, 
Why then obtrude it on the public gaze ? 
Yet, since our present prose belabored time 
Is little used to finding truth in rhyme, 
Know, to forestall each captious critic's cant, 
This is Ulysses Hi^am Simpson Grant. 

Since favor gave — what merit ne'er had won — 
The beggar's steed which bears him proudly on ; 
Since Fortune waits, still constant at his side, 
To point the path his reckless feet shall ride ; 
Speed, speed ! we know thy fore-appointed race, 
Yet tire of watching such a lengthened chase ; 
On to thy goal, and prove the proverb true, 
When beggars ride the devil gets his due. 

He goes at last, from toils of State released. 
From menials' fawning and from flatterers' feast, 
Enriched with spoil from Freedom's altar torn, 
And party gifts, well earued and proudly Avorn ; 
He goes to find upon a foreign shore, 
Fit fields (for him) to conquer or explore. 
Speed, honored bark, o'er ocean's bounding breast. 
To distant realms, each grateful sovereign's guest. • 
Doubt not a fitting welcome thou shalt find ; 
A fellow feeling makes even despots kind . 
Thy tongue well tutored from each foreign throne, 
Shall add at length new meanings to its tone ; 
Its tone ! In vain would foreign linguist teach 
The man who ne'er hath learned his native speech. 
It matters not, each sovereign's awful nod 
Will still proclaim the fellow demigod ; 
While wondering menials marvel at the man 
Who speaks so little, yet whene'er he can ; 
Till thou return, in more than regal state, 
Columbia's sovereign silent potentate. 



19 

What ! shall the Old World still outshine the New? 

Shall outworn realms our youthful clime outdo ? 

Shall mother England boast her costly dower 

Of princely dolts and titled sons of power, 

Whose prestige thrives by foul oppression's gain, 

And feasts and fattens on the bondman's pain? 

Since thus her arm the thunderbolt can wield, 

Shall she not take what others needs must yield, 

Crush out the life from toiling serfs at home, 

Then wisely seek through fresher fields to roam ? 

See ! girt with power, yon foully ravaged isle, 

By nature clothed with verdure's fairest smile. 

Robbed, scourged and plundered, while her famished brood 

In mud-paved hovels die for lack of food. 

Are these the proofs of their imperial sway ? 

The savage beast is more humane than they ! 

Know, bloody tyrant, that thy hour will come ; 

Though round the world is heard thy circling drum, , 

Thy pomp, thy power, shall crumble in a day, 

And men shall wonder at thy vanished sway. 

But hold — though charged with many a beastly wrong, 

England is not the burden of our song. 

Shall dark Italia show her sacred dome. 

The spectral shadow of imperial Rome, 

Whose vanished pomp and outward splendor flown, 

Now leaves her power to torture ghosts alone ? 

What though no human bonfire lights her sky ? 

The heretic at all events must die. 

'Tis something still its passage to control, 

And turn the key upon the parted soul ; 

Then, all unlawful exit to prevent, 

A burial case of solid, strong cement ! 

'Tis yet some compensation to inspire 

Relentless feuds in people prone to ire, 

Who might, by generous brotherly accord. 

Redeem their land from proud oppression's sword. 



( 



20 

Yes ! 'tis some consolation to declare 
Her people slaves, though born in Freedom's air^ 
And weave her snares with Superstition's art, 
To bind the judgment but not wake the heart. 

Shall still each separate European state 

Uphold with pride its petty Potentate '? 

Save only France, whose people, strange to say, 

Live, breathe, and thrive without a monarch's sway. 

They tried the mightiest that the world can claim, 

Who cost the rest a deal of work to tame, 

And found him wanting— peace to him the while — 

His lonely grave on St. Helena's isle 

Might teach the rest — even this, could he but learn, 

How vain the wreath a conqueror's sword can earn. 

Shall Germany, the home of Modern Thought, 
Claim two such names, with royal lustre fraught. 
And one, no king, whose single soul alone 
Can boast more power than theirs, both sire and son ? 
"The Man of Blood and Iron," name well earned, 
Whose word proud France's last usurper spurned — 
Sent him to find *' my uncle's " fate of yore, 
An exile's grave upon a foreign shore. 
'Twere well if thus the record still might be^ 
That each might aid to set the nations free ; 
Like drunken thieves that o'er their plunder gloat^ 
'Twere well if each could cut the other's throat. 

Shall Russia boast her cold, despotic Czar, 

Beloved by serfs as all such monarchs are ? 

How much they love him has been proved of late, 

Or if not love the proof is no less great. 

That love, 'twould seem, has grown to such increase,. 

They scarce will leave him to his meals in peace ; 

O strong devotion, whose dynamic power 

Invades the palace at the banquet hour, 



31 

Provides that feast a despot's choicest food, 

His subjects' flesli and rich ambrosial blood ! 

Yes, that rough home of Peter called the Great, 

<3-rows quite too warm for Autocrats of late ; 

That clime, long bound by wmtry fetters strong, 

Glows fierce with hatred of despotic wrong ; 

And Freedom's breath, suppressed through years of shame, 

Speaks forth its vengeance with a voice of flame. 

Shall Asia own her sovereigns, at whose frown 
The faithful subject rips his entrails down, 
To save his lord the trouble, and shall we 
Have naught but men ? A monarch let him be ! 
If but to show what fools we freemen are ; 
How mean a thing can wear a conqueror's star ; 
Confirm the vaunt that despots long have made, 
To rule the mob is still the monarch's trade. 

Lo, lordless yet — though strangely wooed of late, 
Columbia, tireless, weaves her web of State ; 
Contriving oft the fabric to undo. 
Which still requires fresh labor to renew ; 
A respite thus from tyrant power to earn, 
Till fate decree her rightful lord's return ; 
Who is that lord ? Ulysses ! Who but he 
From constant toil her faithful hands can free? 
Who from her frame, unfit such toil to bear, 
Shall lift at once the burden of her care ? 
He comes at last, that mission to fulfill ; 
He comes, a menial, save his monarch will ; 
Might that prevail, then every inch a king ! 
Whose hand like his the party quoit can ring ? 
Whose arm the bow of sovereign power shall bend, 
And to its mark the shaft of empire send ? 
Howe'er disguised, with tinsel or with clout. 
The dogs of office soon shall scent him out ; 



32 

Soon recognize unclianged the despot tone, 
And by tlieir fawning make the master known. 

Ye varlets ! now your wonted tricks resume ; 

Your master speaks — the cause demands a boom I 

Ye politicians ! skilled in party toils ; 

Ye office mongers ! hungry for the spoils ; 

Ye thieving ringsters ! now too long outlawed 

From posts of profit and from schemes of fraud ; 

(But hold— not now — that all prevailing word 

In louder tones perchance shall yet be heard ;) 

Ye whippers-in ! who wield the party lash ; 

Ye would-be judges ! who dispense the cash ; 

Ye corporations, soulless as your king. 

Like cleaves to like, ye recognize the thing ; 

Ye shylocks ! late so joyful to resume, 

Down with the stamps, — the cause demands a boom I 

Ye minions ! ready at the beck of power, 

To sound the j^laudits of your chieftain's hour ; 

Ye puppets ! eager for the big parade, 

The long drawn march, the glittering cavalcade, 

Ye henchmen of the gleaming casque and plume. 

Come, swell the train — the cause demands a boom I . 

Ye shysters ! itching for a chance to spout, 

And poor your floods of fulsome rhetoric out ; 

Ye hireling clergy ! watchful still to find 

A Coming Man well moulded to your mind, 

Prate, fawn and flatter, and insult your God 

With incense offfered to this speechless fraud f 

Ye gourmands ! scentful of the promised feast, 

Your adulation is sincere at least ; 

Your costly entrance to the banquet room 

Shall be repaid — the cause demands a boom! 

'Tis past ! the hero's long victorious march, 
The pageantry, the high triumphal arch. 



33 

The big parade, the crowds from toil releasM, 

The fulsome rhetoric, and the brimming feast. 

What waits the monarch's mandate to fulfill ? 

One thing alone — the people's sovereign will ! 

The people ! yes, howe'er the tricksters fret, 

Some things the people do not quite forget ; 

The knaves, the thieves, a former lease of power 

Upheld and fostered till its final hour ; 

What servile minions of fraternal strife 

Were gorged and fattened on the country's life ; 

Who parceled for each cunning varlefs dower 

The country's gift, the sacred trust ot power ; 

Who basely branded at a felon's word 

Her bravest son that ever flashed a sword ; 

Whose heel of power was on the prostrate South ; 

What minion dared that foul insult to mouth, 

Whose hoarse response and deep-toned blood -hound bay 

Yet haunts him, though a " thousand miles away ; " ^ 

What word ? " Banditti ! " Southern gentlemen. 

Ye heard it once, have ye forgotten when ? 

That stern arraignment of perverted power. 

From lips that labored till their latest hour 

In freedom's cause, which pirate statesmen heard, 

And quailed to see the Sumner lion stirred ! 

Who signed himself a hundred thousand more, 

(Not men, but dollars, for his foreign tour ;) 

What sovereign word ordained the damning fraud, 

Whose brazen front still flaunts its shame abroad ; 

All this they know, and keep the record well. 

How well, how true, the coming hour will tell. 

Remember ? Yes, the time shall come again, 

When this imperial soul will want more men ; 

If they respond, this adage well may rule, 

Each man at best is either knave or fool. 



24 

What! boomsters, ringsters, henchmen, vanished all? 

Were ye but puppets conjured at his call ? 

Breathes there not one supremel}'- bold, to say, 

I stick for him, first, last, and every day ? 

Yes, one ; behold him ! Keystone's honored son ; 

Whose post of power and prestige proudly won, 

Proves Scotia's shore— a truth ignored till late, 

A goodly soil from which to emigrate ; 

Whose stock, transplanted to this generous sphere, 

Has hugely grown and broadly burgeoned here. 

Beneath the shadow of that parent tree 

What party clansman has not bowed the knee '? 

Full deep instructed in each party wile, 

And wisely schooled in hospitable guile. 

He kens too well the tale of Roderick Dhu, 

To let this chieftain pass unguarded through. 

O, degradation ot a clansman's name ! 

O, honor bartered for a hireling's fame ! 

O, base devotion to a loftier crest ! 

But hold — this chieftain knows his blisiness best ; 

Wait till the ford, the Keystone ford, is past ; 

Perhaps we'll find them man to man at last ; 

In vain I the clansman rashly throws away 

His target shield too early in the fray ; 

In vain I disarmed beneath the royal heel. 

No party dirk shall foil his foeman's steel. 

Thou, fitting champion of a cause like this, 
Whose reason scorns a mightier Power than his. 
Orator Bob I whose dulcet accents glide, 
Like murmuring streams that through the meadows slide. 
Nor ask what feeds their living cun-ents' flow, 
Nor whence they come, nor whitherto they go. 
Whose wealth of verse-like prose, or prose-like verse. 
Might still be better, and could still be worse. 



Would it were pmse ; strong, trencliant, truthful, bold ; 

Then we might say, " This, surely, is not old." 

Would it were verse, well rhymed and fitly turned, 

Then we might point the page from which 'twas learned. 

Speak ! Bob, whenever you can hire a hall ; 

'Twill do you good, and sure no harm can fall. 

Your logic, spite of theologic foes. 

Shall win the day — so far as logic goes ; 

Dissolve great Berkley's world-dissolving mist — 

■Creative Thought's bombastic Nihilist ! 

Great self-constructed Cognitive Machine ! 

Deny the Essence, deify the seen ; 

Discard alike the human — cosmic Soul ; 

Dig Behig's grave— Negation's rimless hole ; 

Prove, past all doubt, thyself a sentient clod. 

The world a cheat, and life a juggler's fraud, 

Whose psychal cypher serves but to express 

■Creation's void — the sum of nothingness ! 

But, my advice — I give it gratis. Bob — 

If you would rouse the soul's electric throb 

When you depict Columbia's Volunteer, 

Don't copy from the Bounty Mutineer ; 

Don't make him just like Byron's British Tar, 

Who fights for sport, and makes a jest of war ; 

'' Careless of danger as the onward wind " — 

Who seeks the rest may at his leisure find 

Each chosen phrase, well pruned and deftly scanned, 

Pressed, cut and dry, for Bob's creative hand. 

Chicago ! Mistress of the midland seas, 

'Or inland oceans — call them what you please ; 

Hermaphoditus of the flood and flame, 

By both usurped, which neither quite can claim ; 

Chicago ! famed for Communistic bores, 

■Combustions streets, and cloud-aspiring stores ; 



2(> 

Stores deeply freighted wiili the fruetuous spoil 

From Grangers wrung by speculative toil. 

What Manitou pronounced the mingled spell 

Thy fateful history has fulfilled so well ? 

What Mudjekeewis, with tempestuous breathy 

Still seeks to sweep thee with a fiery swath ? 

What Hiawatha from the Big Sea wave 

Eeturns to gulf thee in a liquid grave 2 

What Retribution for a slaughtered race, 

Concentering here, completes a land's disgrace ? 

Chicago ! watchful for the promised day, 

To feast the bilks, and make the gudgeons pay ; 

Who saw convened, regardless of expense, 

Cracks, prigs, pickpockets, cunning rogues of fence — 

A host of thieves ! responsive to their king, 

To fleece the crowds thy hundred trains shouki bring.. 

'Twas thine, expectant of the monster Boom, 

To see it vanish in a sea o-f gloom ; 

'Twas thine, exultant in thy boastful claim, 

To see it fade, a feeble, flickering flame ;. 

Millions of stars illumed the murky way I 

Millions of stars could not restore the day. 

What jammed the boom and balked the big parade? 

'Twas simply this : The boomsters could not wade. 

What spoiled the show and made the prigs so grum ? 

'Twas simply this : The Grangers did not come. 

Chicago ! yet some crumbs of comfort fell ; 

Let Fame preserve and guard the relics well. 

'Twas thine to hear, responsive to thine own, 

Flashed from the Toombs, a fierce defiant groan ! 

To hear rechimed the Keystone patriot's chant, 

"World-girdling" buncombe — sycophantic cant; 

'Twas thine to hear the Master soul of Boom 

Read — what he could not speak — his country's doom. 

'Twas thine to hear the proud usurping claim, 

/ bear the sword in the Republic's name ; 



27 

To hear him mouth that monstrous guarantee, 

I shall preserve what / have rendered free ! 

Where was thy lightning, Freedom ? Where the flame 

Which made a desert of those streets of shame ? 

Who framed that utterance ? Who inspired that strain ? 

That Ring who hope through him to wreathe her chain? 

That Chief whose widely devastating march 

Out-capped the keystone of this conqueror's arch ? 

A march unmatched for dire destructive rage, — 

The boast of song in this enlightened age ! 

A march which left no barrier in its course. 

Burnt, razed, and ravaged with remorseless force ; 

Whose trail of blight and blackness long shall be 

The damning record how he reached the sea ! 

Great brother conqueror ! whose unselfish flame 

Sheds added luster to his colder claim ; 

Unmarred by petty rivalries of power, 

How blest with love in this fraternal hour! 

Yet, brother chief ! 'twere well to have a care ; 

This all-absorbing sovereign soul will bear 

No rival claimant of his vested right ; , 

True, thou may'st prompt ; nay more, may even indite- 

The royal bond, — such aid is not amiss ; 

Who wrote such history well may father this ! 

What knows that dolt of nation or of State ? 
What taught " Republic " to his lips so late ? 
Republic ! yes, that smacks of ancient Rome — 
We know the end, the Csesars' stately dome. 
Name what Republic has not had its crown 
Usurped by hands ignoble as his own. 
Israel ? She had her monarch madman Saul ; 
Greece ? Alexander, maddest far of all ; 
The crown for which great Csesar bled in vain, 
Octavious grasped and wore without a stain ; 



France? Yes, her monarch was ambition mad, 

Sought more, and lost the royal boon he had ; 

See ! how the record of the past will stand ; 

^'Gloomy" enough, though little of the ''grand," 

And quite '' peculiar" — ha ! no pilfering there — 

Let 'Frisco scribes that dark discovery share, 

Pierce through that brain with deep dissective gaze, 

Rehearse what traits the sovereign's eye displays, 

And gravely hint of friends not over wise ; 

If this be so, then all opprobrium dies ; 

Whom God hath touched let not his fellows scorn ! 

Yet Wisdom speaks, of dark experience born, 

" These be the madmen who have made men mad, 

Conquerors and. kings " — a tale how deeply sad ! 

^Tis ours to see that none, or mad or sane. 

Repeat the daring tragedy again. 

Meanwhile this question for solution waits : 

What has became of these United States ? 

Was Constitution then engulfed by War? 

Is President another name for Czar ? 

Is then the Sword the power to which we owe 

Supreme allegiance ? Answer ! and if so, 

Then let us say. Yon tomb, where darkly sleeps 

That rugged form, in vain its treasure keeps ; 

In vain his country rears above his bones 

Her sacred pile of monumental stones ; 

Then it was true ! Brave Brutus, breathe again ! 

"He slew his country and was justly slain." 

Know, cold Usurper, there was one who saw 
That proud assumption in the name of Law ; 
One who, unmoved by Power's enchanting spell, 
Interpreted its daring meaning well ; 
Who, though unknown beyond his scenes of birth, 
And there, perchance esteemed of little worth, 
Had watched the growth of this tyrannic power 
From its first dawning till its present hour ; 



39 
t 

Who saw it lurking in the deep abyss 
Of public crime — who heard its dragon hiss 
When first it rose upon the surge of strife, — 
Beheld it fasten on the people's life 
When that wild storm of passion passed away, — 
Who saw and knew that it had come to stay ! 
Who never sought, nor seeks not now to claim 
The thankless prestige of a prophet's name, 
Yet who, Q'er first you left your native shore, 
Rehearsed your progress with foreshadowing lore ; 
Saw, traced in symbols as a pen of flame, 
Thy course, thy coming, and its final aim. 
Who, skilled in mysteries of thy craft, could say 
Where would emerge thy darkened eastward way ; 
Who saw its deep significance of power 
Unfolded in the utterance of that hour. 

Words are but words ; 'twas fit thou should'st abuse 

That potent weapon freemen dare not use. 

I, too, with words can weave a hidden spell ; 

'Twere well that all should heed its meaning well ; 

Say, This is Rome^ the new-born Italy ; 

Sovereign, supreme, all-conquering, crownless, free ; 

Unsceptered still ! let no base Cassius say 

Our Roman birthright yet has passed away. 

We had our twin -born Saxon founders, who 

From savage veins their native fierceness drew ; 

Our Romulus, who, when his brother leapt 

The Atlantic bar, in gore his weapon steept ; 

We had our Cincinnatus, long ago ; 

So long, we tire to hear him vaunted so ; 

He served his land — her debt of servicie paid,. 

He sought with dignity retirement s shade ; 

He loved his country, but her sons were men, 

And Constitution was her safeguard then ! 



30 

We had our' Caesar — Rome's next honored son ; 

Dark was the hour he crossed the Rubicon ! 

Fierce was the flood, he braved its swelling power, 

And rose the daring monarch of the hour. 

'Twas he first taught the modern tyrant school, 

"They only can be free who dare to rule." 

We had our Pompey, in whose shadow lay 

Great Caesar's form, and breathed his life away. 

What Pompey ? That let dark Oppression tell, 

For whose revenge the mighty Caesar fell ; 

The power that chained our Afric Hannibal, 

Shrined by our fathers in the Capital ; 

'Twas meet, to make the parallel complete, 

Caesar should fall at vanquished Thraldom's feet. 

Then, since we claim our martyr Caesar dead, 

Shall not Augustus wear the crown instead ? 

Augustus, hail ! — but Brutus — where is he? 

And first we'll hear the noble Antony : 

I am no orator as Brutus is, 

I cannot thunder with a voice like his. 

Nor hurl, with awful'vengeance in mine eye, 

The tragic doom. Thou ! Tyrant-traitor, die I 

Yet know, I loved this murdered Caesar well, 

And wept the hour the generous tyrant fell ! 

That Roman soul of strong heroic mould, 

By lofty thought and fearless power controlled ; 

His grasp was on his country, but his heart 

Beat strong with love for all and every part. 

I watched him hold the shattered helm of State, 

Though bent and broken by the billows' weight, 

Through storms of war, till shone the beams of peace 

Then saw and mourned that gallant purpose cease, 

And Faction, rampant in the name of Law, 

Work out the doom his prophet soul foresaw. 

His Epitaph — 'tis here, and quickly scanned ; 

You read, we know — perhaps you'll understand ; 



31 

"Sincere in purpose and of lofty soul, 
Unswayed by factious hatred's fell control, 
He bore the burden of a troubled State 
That might have crushed an Atlas by its weight. 
Alas, that purpose so devoutly strong 
Should reach its end by ways so darkly wrong ! 
Thy tribute paid, great CcBsar, sleep in peace ; 
Thy Brutus' soul found fitly swift release ; 
Perhaps he loves thee on that Stygian shore 
Where tyrants fall and Brutus smites no more." 
Augustus — hear ; a private word w^ith you ; 
We'll halve the world — 'tis large enough for two 
Our compact made had need be thus exprest : 
I'll keep the People — you may claim the rest. 

Behold the man who left his native shore — 
For what ? To find what name his country bore 
This traveled Sinbad of a three years cruise, 
Comes, hugely fraught with — Lilliputian news ! 
We live much better — take it man for man — 
In the Republic than in Hindustan ! 
Why not? The world is large enough for all ; 
Men need not herd like beasts in one wide stall. 
What makes that swarming hive of human bees 
Exist — not live — to die by slow degrees ? 
'Tis proud Oppression, whose remorseless will, 
Makes blinded millions grind its prison mill ! 
Speed swift the hour — not only here, but there, 
Mankind alike the fruits of toil shall share. 

'Tis " distance lends enchantment to the view," 
And so, 'twould seem, has distance done for you. 
You learned so much while on a foreign shore, 
You should go back, and learn a trifle more ! 
Go ! studious soul ; and when you go again. 
Instruct your teachers, — make the matter plain, 
And show them thus our status to express : 
Big N— A— T- 1— O— N— S . 



32 

Tutor yonr tutors ; tell the Tartar Khan, 
Your other friends — the Tycoon of Japan, 
The Flowery Kingxloni High Celestial " coon/' 
Child of the Sun and Brother of the Moon, 
The Bey of Barbary — and all the rest I 
Columbia bears upon her boundless breast 
A hundred Nations, and has room for more ; 
But not one despot breathes upon her shore ! 
Quile true — the last — if you were far away.; 
Go ! traveled fraud, and speed the parting day. 

Great Cosmos bearer ! ere 3'our tortoise hulk 
Essay this modern world's stupendous bulk, 
First let your feet a firm foundation find ; 
The time is past when creatures of your kind, 
Self-poised on nothing, could uphold its weight ; 
Your Hindoo lore was learned an age too late. 

Ho ! Rip Van Winkle of a Third Term sleep, 
Restored so soon from vile potations deep ? 
'Twas well enough, the mad Bacchanial hour. 
But not the last — the demon draught of Power ; 
Shadows of Empire ! whose potential sway 
So deeply on his fettered spirit lay ; 
Dark, silent goblins of a gloomy past, 
Your spell departs — the man will speak at last ! 
He comes to find his former spouse of Power, 
(Although unwed) a pseudo-claimant's dower ; 
Strange ! she should know that once familiar tone^ 
He knows her name, but — can he tell his own ? 
What now ? Expect no word of idle rant ; 
Behold the close-conned, deeply- worded Grant ! 
No more dispute — that well remembered name, 
That Writ of Grant, decides at once his claim \ 
That Writ of Power proclaims the fact to-day^ 
Columbia owns a maudlin vagrant's sway I 



33 

Mark well the claimant, of the Pinal Voice, 
*' Columbia, true, may not accord her choice ; 
H e cares not — nay, so clear her welfare lies — 
Hopes the necessity may not arise ! " 
Is there a climax of absurdity 
In egotism? That climax this must be. 
What deep significance may lurk below 
I leave his schooled interpreters to show ; 
Yet, lest the rendering all should quite mistake. 
Let me, en passant, this slight comment make . 
The story goes, a well known. statesman, once, 
(Who, matters not — grant us, he was no dunce, 
Since he could speak — that every school-boy knows, 
Was ne'er denied by either friends or foes.) 
When with his fellow-statesmen called to dine, 
Was, statesman -like, somewhat o'ercome with wine, 
In fact, quite drunk ; when called on for a speech, 
A patj-iot friend who sat in easy reach, 
And, strange to say, retained his senses yet. 
Suggested as a theme " The Public Debt." 
"The Public Debt," the orator uprears 
His honored form amid applausive cheers, 
" The Public Debt demands the patriot's aid ; 
The Public Debt, it must, it shall be paid ; 
Since no one else has got sufficient pelf, 
By Jove ! I'll pay the Public Debt myself ! " 
He ceased, collapsed, and to the carpet sunk, 
That saddest sight, a patriot statesman drunk. 

False power-procl aimer ! thinking but to shake 
Your threatening mane, and all the world will quake. 
Your trick is old— you played it twice befor.e, 
And played it well — but then you did not roar !. 
We know you now, and tell you without fear, 
Your boastful strategy wcm't answer here. 



34 

It might succeed, if vulgar things like you, 
Lions fin masque, could learn their nature too. 
No, monstrous cheat ! your ruse will hardly pass ; 
Your tell-tale tongue too well proclaims the Ass. 
Go, doff that hide ! resume your native gait — 
A fool hy nature, and a Iraud by f\ite. 

Come, tell us now — be honest, if you can — 
If not, why then at least be candid, man — • 
Say just whereon you base your regnant claim 'i 
Your long career of high devoted aim ? 
Your worth was ne'er discovered till the hour 
Your first commission gained the seal of power. 
Would you not now, except for patron aid, 
Be festering still in vile seclusion's shade? 
Would 3^ou not still be sweltering o'er your vat — 
If it be true you could do even that — 
But for the War? Aye! Tragedy's the thing 
Whereby we catch the conscience ot the king ! 
Your right of sway is based upon the dead ; 
Your spouse of Power, by bloody rapine wed, 
Still fires your lust of that adulterous joy, 
Still whispers your insatiate soul. Destroy ! 
Beware the Ghost ! the Ghost of murdered Right, 
Whose sleepless spirit walks the viewless night, 
Shall find some champion whose devoted soul, 
Unswayed by doubt or craven fear's control, 
Shall dare to heed that tale so darkly strange, 
And roused to fierceness, sweep to its revenge ! 

Say, man of deeply meditative thought, 
How long before a buried feud will rot? 
Four years — or eight? — A tanner lasts as long. 
Sixteen? — Say twenty, since the pulse was strong. 
Well, twenty, say ; (we should have stopped at ten.) 
This jester ruled us like a sovereign then. 



35 

We youngsters hailed him Monarch of the hour ; 
'Twas quite the thing, his boast of boundless power':' 
His scathing jibes — how fierce their lightnings fell ! 
His flash of mirth was like the fire of hell ! 
How he could set the table in a roar ! 
The feast was Death — the cup was human gore ! 
This skull, exhumed afresh from day to day, 
Makes (for the stage) a filthy, foul display ; 
Faugh ! bury it — the ghastly, crumbling cell ; 
Ask not how deep, but hide the carcase well. 
Down, down, in dark Plutonian caverns deep. 
Let these vile bones their charneled slumber keep. 

Lo, Cuba ! daughter of the dancing Main ! 
Who thought to break the power of haughty Spain, 
And would, had proud Columbia deigned her aid, 
The shelter of her Starry Banner's shade. 
He goes — the reason all may understand, 
J Aired by the scent of that blood-crimsoned strand, 
The grateful incense of the warrior soul, 
Whose master sway will still his path control 
To fields where carnage feeds on human kind — 
And finds the scenes well suited to his mind. 
But — how? This daughter of the dancing main, 
.Inspired with strength unquelled by haughty Spain, 
Shakes up the hero from his midnight rest. 
Shakes up, and would have shook him from her breast. 
But warned by haughty Neptune, dared not fling 
On his wide realm this carcase of a king; 
Columbia ! learn from this thy future course ; 
Shake oft" this incubus of fliteful force, 
This hybrid offspring of adulterous Mars, 
This fiery dragon trampling Freedom's stars. 

Come, view with me — 'we will not stop ac names — 
Our countr3''s, people's. Union's house in flames. 



36 • 

The stately fane by patriot hands upreared, 

To patriot hearts by sacred ties endeared, 

Let patriot hands, unmindful now of spoil, 

Prevent the wreck of Freedom's costly toil.. 

Bring forth the Engine, wrought for times like these, 

Quite useless else, a cumbrous, costly piece ; 

Man well the works, —let hands of fearless skill 

Direct the nozzle with determined Avill ; 

The flames have sunk, the work is well nigh o'er. 

Let fresher strength the liquid current pour ; 

Scorched, bleeding, blasted by the seething fires, 

Each outworn toiler from the task retires ; 

One yet remains, cool, cautious, calm, whose hand 

With prudent reach can yet the wreck command. 

He holds the mouthpiece of the seething flood, 

The stream that quenches is the people's blood ! 

Thanks, earnest helpers, for your kind relief ; 

Make, if you choose, j^on able hand your chief ; 

Your salvage claims our gratitude decrees, — 

Not occupation of the premises ; 

Our title deed that right still guarantees. 

Ye ! boomsters, knaves and sycophants, adieu. 
My song requires no further aid from you ; 
Truth's trumpet voice, however loudly clear. 
Still finds no lodgment in a hireling's ear. 
Y^e jackals ! prowling 'neath your master's sway, 
To gnaw the fragments of the promised prey ; 
Y^e wolves! that gorge on Right and Honor slain, 
Back to your haunts — the crisis calls for men ! 
T^ot men who claim for service in the hour 
Of strife, the guerdon of unlicensed potver; 
Not men to feed fierce War's remorseless maw ; 
But men who reverence Constituted Law ; 
And scorn to merge in one despotic will 
The rights adjusted with experienced skill ; 



37 

Whose word lono; banished Justice would restore ; 

Bid her uplift her sacred scale once more, 

And yield alike the citizen, the State, 

The Federal bond, their justly balanced weight ; 

Who "hold the truth to be self-evident, 

All rightful rule is based upon consent ;" 

And view rebellion with a patriot pride, 

Which wars for rights by treasonous power denied. 

Ye people ! jeX a word before we part ; 

Would I might touch with truth's divinest art, 

That master chord in every honest breast, 

Which, right controlled, shall govern all the rest. 

This is no mockery of an idle theme, 

By fancy chosen— -no illusive dream, 

Used to beguile a tedicms evening's flight, 

Forgot in slumber ere the morning light ; 

No empty coinage of a scheming brain, 

Inspired by malice or the hope of gain. 

Too vividly before my vision burns 

That tireless wheel at which the toiler earns 

His daily life, this warning to ignore : 

That which shall be is what hath been before. 

If ye mistake the message of the hour, . 

Your strength shall feed the dragon folds of Power, 

Which fiiin would make its final refuge here. 

Do ye not feel the conflict drawing near? 

What ! Have those shining marks of living light 

Our fathers left that we might build aright, 

Proved useless ? Is our Freedom's house of life 

So rent and fractured by fraternal strife — 

Grrown such a Babel . that each clamorous fool, 

Devoid of skill, demands a inaster's rule ? 

Must we, to guard the sacred altar stone, 

Now lash the crumbling fabric to a throne? 



38 

Then let the fane come crashhig to the earth I 
Far better so than thus uphold its worth ; 
The tie that binds, despite of storm or feud, 
Is this : The bond of sacred brotherhood. 
If this shall fail, farewell to Freedom's claim ; 
Your liberty is but an idle name. 
Then welcome, to tlie ghastly ruin's height, 
The country's mockery and her freedom's blight. 

Wlien Tj-rian slaves, uprising in their wrath 
Swept their oppressors from their midnight path, 
All fell save one, whose serf's devoted love 
Could in that hour his secret safeguard prove. 
Who now shall guide their new developed power. 
And stay the rising faction of the hour? 
'Tvvas then agreed : Who first beholds the sun 
The coming morn shall be the ruling one. 
Behold thein gathered at the dawn of day, 
Each glance expectant of the eastern ray, 
Save him who, by his crafty master taught, 
Look^id to the west, and claimed the boon he sought 
Beheld, reflected from the frowning spire, 
The new-born flash of day's ascending fire. 
When told who taught him thus the morn to greet, 
They bade him call hi a from his dark retreat. 
And hailed him Monarch — all the rest o'erthrown, 
F(jr manj^ masters they had now but one ! 
Is there no warning in the ancient tale ? 
Shall Serfdom still by stratagem prevail ? 
Behold the slaves who crowd this western shore, 
Taught thus to hail the beams of sovereign power, 
Reflected from those towers beyond the sea, 
The bulwarks of an outw^orn tyranny. 

Who has not heard what once the youthful Clay 
Said to his comrade, when Iheir toilsome way 



39 

Had reached the Alleghany's crowning crest, 
The boundary then betvveen the East and West, 
x\s fixed lie stood with bared and reverent head ; 
"I wait to hear the coming millions' tread ! 
Oppressed and exiled from each foreign strand, 
They flow to fill this wide unsceptered land, 
And rear amid the scenes of nature's youth 
The fane of Freedom and the shrine of Truth." 
Could Clay, uprisen from his mortal rest, 
Behold outspread his country's boundless breast, 
And see the living tide whose ceaseless roar 
Now tills the continent from shore to shore. 
Might he not ask, in patriotic awe, 
^' What power controls, what bond of sacred Law 
Cements this mighty brotherhood of States, 
And heals the feuds that factious strife creates ? " 
Then would his guardian spirit hovering near, 
Unfold this message to his wondering ear. 
Patriot ! think not fulfilled thy youthful dream. 
Behold afar yon faint expiring gleam ; 
Hark to yon thunder tone's departing peal, 
Which yet upon thy spirit senses steal. 
These mark the hour when dark Oppression's feud 
Found fierce arbitrament in human blood ; 
These tell the hour when clashing squadrons met, 
And brother's hands with brother's blood were wet. 
'Tis past ; the sulphurous clouds have rolled away, 
But not the Dragon spirit of the fray, 
Which swept the stars from out the shining heaven, 
To mark the path through which its rage was driven ! 
Whose demon pomp, and swift unfolding power, 
Still rules the frantic madness of the hour. 
These gathered tribes from every clime of earth, 
Regardless quite of Truth's immortal worth, 
Have reared themselves a shrine of beastly Fraud, 
And blindly bowed before a senseless god ; 



40 

A AToloch power, whose red destroying breath 

Breathes fiercely forth the flames of sulphurous death ; 

A Baal monster, whose remorseless greed 

Their strength, their children, and their lives must feed- 

One Voice there was. to which the Power was given, 

Elijah-like, to call the fire from heaven ; 

To light the land with Truth's celestial breath,— 

But what could kindle S(mls in love with death? 

That soul, still conscious of the heavenly flame, 

Flashed forth 'gainst falsehood of whatever name ; 

Spoke, prophet-like, to counsel and to warn,— 

The word was met with jeers ot blinded scorn. 

O'erborne at last by fierce Oppression's power, 

It fled, and rage and madness ruled the hour, 

But not forever ; still its utterance finds 

A secret lodgment deep in faithful minds ; 

And millions wait to hear that voice once more. 

It yet shall speak, and loftier than before ; 

In trumpet tones its power shaU yet be heard. 

And serfs and despots tremble at the word. 

While blinded dupes and hireling priests of fraud 

In vain invoke their voiceless, senseless god. 

Patriot, ere time completes thy youthful dream,. 

Justice must yet each trampled right redeem. 

Thy country's sons, by Truth's celestial flame, 

Shall purge the land of Usurpation's claim. 

Wreathing at last her crown of perfect good. 

Freedom and Peace and sacred Brotherhood. 






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:kman 

ERY INC. 
DEC 88 



N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 






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